A friend of mine just had a tragedy in the family—his grandmother passed away. It has been difficult for him, but the good news is that his grandmother lived a rich, full, and happy life and died surrounded by a large and loving family.
But talking to my friend really got me thinking about some of the major assumptions that inform public policy in this country, particularly the idea that America is a meritocracy. My friend’s grandmother was a very wealthy woman, and she left her grandchildren each with substantial trust funds (and by substantial, I mean substantial — as in as much money as I will ever make in my entire life if I continue in the non-profit/community organizing field). Now, I myself have grown up with so many privileges and advantages that I don’t think it’s right to say that I particularly deserve or can take much credit for any of the money I will make in the future, but here is this guy who has, in one day, by virtue of his birth, earned more money than I will earn for the next fifty or so years of labor.
We might think that a nation as deadset against “free handouts” as ours would try to restrict this most extravagant of free handouts. But the reality is quite the opposite — the United States greatly subsidizes these kinds of handouts by taxing capital gains and estates at a far lower rate than any other industrialized nation in the world. What we say in this country, in effect, is that it’s more important to ensure that a friend of mine on one end of the socioeconomic spectrum get the entirety of a hoard he did nothing to deserve than, for example, another harder-working friend of mine be provided with bus passes so that he can get to school every morning without having to walk nearly three miles through the winter chill.
It’s just hard for me to understand how folks can claim that legitimate social services designed to help those constrained by structures of inequality will create dependence and a lack of initiative, but the ability to live comfortably the rest of one’s life without doing a lick of work is alright as long as its restricted to those who are already greatly privileged. If anyone can explain to me how that can possibly make sense, I’m willing to listen. Until then, I will remain confused and more than a little ashamed.
Great post, Aaron. I have always found the conservative critique of the estate tax to be somewhat ironic, given their simultaneous advocacy of free-market capitalism and its virtues. After all, if the justification of a free market society is rooted in liberty (it enables each of us to pursue our ends, without interference from the state or circumstances of birth) and efficiency (pursuing those ends advances aggregate interests along with self-interest), how can a conservative truly disagree with estate and wealth taxes?
Indeed, they should be leading the charge for steeper taxes, shouldn’t they?
Of course, the marriage between American conservatism and the ‘free market’ — at least for most of its history, from the antebellum South to the Tea Party — has largely been one of convenience.
The American conservative movement, at least in its elite variant, has today returned to the very essence of Western conservative ideology prior to the 20th century: the defense of ‘natural’ inequality. Prior to the rise of modern corporate capitalism, what conservatives defended was the ‘traditional’ order. Whether the defense was religious, moral, evolutionary or self-interested, conservatism generally believed that social and economic inequality were immutable and justifiable. Its roots in monarchism and feudalism, in other words, were clearly stated. Within the South, they were stated without apology. Outside the South, at least, this defense of inequality has rested very uncomfortably within American conservatism, particularly in the post-World War II era.
With a nod and wink to white voters about the sources of racial inequality, conservatives posited a coalition of the black poor and the liberal elite striving to keep the average (white) man down. With the tax revolts of the 70s and the dawning of the Age of Reagan, the GOP began to attach these sentiments to policy. It claimed that liberating the pocketbooks of the wealthy would lift from the bottom.
In the wake of the Great Recession, as well as three decades of wage stagnation and economic insecurity for most American households, most voters aren’t terribly inclined to cut Roark his Randian lebensraum. In response, conservative elites seem to be reverting to their fundamental baseline: the defense of inequality.
This is why the Occupy movements are so consequential — they are onto something fundamental. For more on my argument above, go to chantsdemocratic.blogspot.com/2011/06/conservatism-taxes-and-defense-of.html#more